Home | Join! | Help | Browse | Forums | NuWorld | NWF | PoPo   
Memores acti prudentes futuri


You're unsure if I am a loose end or a strand
that waits for you to mend or understand
A few words
"When we describe the Moon as dead, we are describing the deadness in ourselves. When we find space so hideously void, we are describing our own unbearable emptiness."
~ D.H. Lawrence

"Is the meaning of life defined by its duration? Or does life have a purpose so large that it doesn't have to be prolonged at any cost to preserve its meaning?"

"Living is not good, but living well. The wise man, therefore, lives as well as he should, not as long as he can... He will always think of life in terms of quality not quantity... Dying early or late is of no relevance, dying well or ill is... even if it is true that while there is life there is hope, life is not to be bought at any cost."
~ Seneca

"People will tell you nothing matters, the whole world's about to end soon anyway. Those people are looking at life the wrong way. I mean, things don't need to last forever to be perfect."
~ Daydream Nation

"All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories-- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death."
~ The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes

"The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on the wrong site of the road."
~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend."
~ William Blake
TICoSME
Musicalities!
Online Radio
Soma.fm

More Fun Shtuff
Newgrounds Audio Portal
Pandora
SoundClick
Kill that boredom!
Binder Paper Comics

Web Comics and Such
A Distant Soil (Some nudity)
The Adventures of Gyno-Star (Some explicit stuff)
Aquapunk
Axe Cop
Basic Instructions
Bear Nuts
Beeserker

Blue Milk Special
Bug
Buttersafe
ChannelATE
Cigarro & Cerveja
Crunchy Bunches

Curia Regis
Cyanide and Happiness
dead winter (has some explicit stuff)
Devilbear: The Grimoires of Bearalzebub (PG-13?)
Diesel Sweeties
DUBBLEBABY
Eat That Toast!
E-merl.com
The End
Evil Diva
Evil Inc.
Existential Comics
The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon
For Lack of a Better Comic
Forming (Explicit)

Girls with Slingshots (some explicit stuff...?)
Mirror
The Last Halloween
Last Train to Old Town
L.A.W.L.S.
The League of Evil Genius

Legend of Bill
Living With Insanity (some nudity)
Love Me Nice
Married to the Sea
Meaty Yogurt
Medium Large
The Meek
Metacarpolis
Monsterhood
Monsterkind
The Moon Prince
Moth (Some nudity)
Mr. Lovenstein
Muddlers Beat

Natalie Dee
Nedroid
The Non-Adventures of Wonderella
Optipess
Out There
Owen's Uncles
Phuzzy Comics
Political Cartoonists Index
Poorly Drawn Lines
Powernap
The Property of Hate
Red Meat
Rice Boy
Robbie and Bobby
Rosscott, Inc.
Safely Endangered
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Savage Chickens
Scary Go Round
Scenes from a Multiverse
The Secret Knots
Serenity Rose
Stand Still. Stay Silent
Stinking Hellebore
Strong Female Protagonist
Subnormality
Tales of Pylea
Three Word Phrase (some nudity)
Tiny Kitten Teeth
Toothpaste for Dinner
Trying Human (Some nudity)
Two Guys and Guy

Wilde Life
Witchy
xkcd
Yellow Peril (PG-13)

Infrequently/No Longer Updating Web Comics
The Abominable Charles Christopher
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
The Adventures of Ellie Connelly
American Hell
Bag of Toast
Bear in Mind
Bobwhite
The Book of Biff
Brat-halla
Brightest
Broodhollow
Bullfinch
Camp Weedonwantcha
Chain Bear (Some explicit stuff)
Chainsawsuit
Conspiracy Friends!
Daisy is Dead
Distillum
Dream Life
Dumm Comics
Ectopiary (Some nudity)
Edemia
Edmund Finney's Quest to Find the Meaning of Life
A Fine Example
Finn and Charlie are HITCHED
Floodmud
Freaks!

Green Wake
Gun Show
Hark! A Vagrant
Head Doctor Productions
Hello with Cheese
Helpful Figures
Hollow Mountain
IDK Comics
Inscribing Ardi
Intragalactic
The Intrepid Girlbot
JBabb Comics
Kyle & Atticus
Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space
Letters to a Wild Boar
Lovecraft is Missing

Manta-man
Meat and Plastic
Minimalism Sucks
Mis-
Moe
Moon Town
The Nerds of Paradise
Nimona
No Reason Comics
Odd-Fish
One Swoop Fell
Patches
Pictures for Sad Children
Raymondo Person
A Redtail's Dream
Riotfish
Roy's Boys (PG 13?)
Run Freak Run
Saint's Way
Shortpacked!
Sin Titulo
Snowflakes
Split Lip
Spooky Doofus
SubCulture
Super Buzzkill
The Super Fogeys
The Super Gay Adventures of Ross Boston
Thermohalia
Troubletown
Mirror
Ugly Girl
YU + ME
2815 Monument

Pure Flash Awesomeness
Aardvardkbutter.com
Angry Alien
Die Anstalt : Toy Psychiatry
The Frown
Hoogerbrugge

Other
Bogleech
Clients from Hell
Brian Despain
Creatures in My Head
Damn You Auto Correct!
Jhonen Vasquez's site
Overheard in New York
Passive Aggressive Notes
Submarinechannel.com
Superdickery
UHpinions
Whirled
Deception and duty in the goldfish sea
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Decided to do some light searching for teetotaler groups. Not much came up, but there's a Meetup group that's specifically alcohol-free, so I requested membership there. Worth a shot. Would be nice to meet someone who shares my lifestyle choices.

---

I submitted my application and should be getting interviewed soon. Maybe I should feel excited, but... I don't. I guess I'm wary because of the last school. My therapist used to try to reassure me by suggesting that I might find my koi pond in grad school, but it was only more goldfish and disappointment. I'm not hoping for much this time around.

One of the books I'm reading, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, talks about how people who think a lot about morality (specifically philosophers of ethics) aren't actually likely to be better people than people who don't, on average. I'm not particularly surprised by that conclusion. You can talk the talk without walking the walk. I had enough of that at my last school. It's a problem with psychology school in general-- a lot of people think they're helpful and good listeners, but they're actually not, and they don't take the time to seriously hone their skills and figure out what it means to be better and implement those changes.

While I don't think anybody like that is necessarily intending to deceive, I find their inconsistency a bit... disgusting, I suppose. Can't call them liars, because lying is telling a falsehood with the intent to deceive (meaning you have to know that you're not telling the truth), but I don't know what else would fit as a descriptor.

I think it especially bothers me when people are deceptive (about themselves, to others or to themselves) in this field because it seems like such potential to harm others. If you're supposed to be administering therapy and you're a terrible listener who lacks the empathy and awareness to understand your clients, you could really screw up someone's experience with therapy, and that person might never come back, or they might come out feeling worse than they started. The idea of that really bothers me. Angers me, even. I'm told that a lot of these people who suck at listening might actually learn a lot during internship, which I hope is true.

Not trying to say I'm a perfect listener myself, as I know I have blind spots and there are always mistakes to correct for. I guess the difference is that I don't go around bragging about how I'm such a great listener. Actually I'm not sure I even think of myself as a great listener, or particularly empathetic, or understanding, or whatever else. I'm trying to be those things, but for myself, I only really look to see if I've at least made some progress from, say, ten years ago, and I'm hesitant to make comments about my current state. I'm trying to do better, I can leave it at that.

---

I read a post earlier on Reddit about motivation vs. discipline and how they factor into results. The poster was arguing that waiting for motivation to strike you is a trap, and you need discipline to push through and get where you want to be. There were some issues with the way it was described in the post, but it made me think. Motivation here could be the "want" and discipline is the "need" to do something. Like a self-obligation, maybe. I think the word 'obligation' has negative connotations attached to it, because people don't like thinking that they "have" to do things, but I wish it weren't seen as such a bad thing.

This generation, my generation, has gotten so many motivational speeches and lectures and fluffy Facebook/Instagram/whatever posts about how you should follow your passion and do what you love in life. There's this strong implication that everyone has this fire burning inside of them that will drive them if they only let it. That's some straight up bullshit for a good chunk of people though. Not everybody has a passion. I think what I'm interested in is important but I would never describe it as a passion. I didn't even want to major in psychology for a long time. It seems more accurate to say I do what I do, I put all this effort in, because I have to. Sometimes that overlaps with wanting to, but a lot of times it doesn't. I don't have discipline in all areas of my life but I try to maintain it here, in my attempts to improve. There are plenty of times it would seem easier to just let myself go and be lazy and selfish, but that would also be repugnant to the point where I don't know if I'd even consider such an existence worth living.

---

Old favorite. "Schism" by Tool.

I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away
Mildewed and smoldering, fundamental differing
Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers' souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes testing our communication
The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so
We cannot seem to reach an end, crippling our communication

I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them tumble down
No fault, none to blame, it doesn't mean I don't desire to
Point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over
To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication

The poetry that comes from the squaring off between
And the circling is worth it
Finding beauty in the dissonance

There was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall away
Mildewed and smoldering, strangled by our coveting
I've done the math enough to know the dangers of our second guessing
Doomed to crumble unless we grow, and strengthen our communication

Cold silence
Has a tendency
To atrophy any
Sense of compassion
Between supposed lovers
Between supposed brothers

I know the pieces fit
0 Comments.

Sorry, you do not have permission to comment.

If you are a member, try logging in again or accessing this page here.

randomjunk's Weblog Site • NuTang.com

NuTang is the first web site to implement PPGY Technology. This page was generated in 0.250seconds.

  Send to a friend on AIM | Set as Homepage | Bookmark Home | NuTang Collage | Terms of Service & Privacy Policy | Link to Us | Monthly Top 10s
All content � Copyright 2003-2047 NuTang.com and respective members. Contact us at NuTang[AT]gmail.com.